Published on, Sept. 16 -- September 16, 2025 10:38 AM

For weeks, the floods appear to have dominated Pakistan's headlines. Every few days, new figures emerge: thousands more displaced, more villages underwater, more roads and crops destroyed. Beneath the relentless coverage runs a single, largely ignored truth as to how the floods are not accidents of nature, but evidence of a state trapped in a cycle of neglect that has become almost routine.

Punjab's evacuation of 2.5 million people, the largest in Pakistan's history, has unfolded like a grim ritual. Fields that once sustained the country's food supply are buried in silt, livestock lie drowned, and families shelter under plastic sheets, waiting for aid. Officials now speak of Rs50 bil...